Sky's the Limit

PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: With an Outback tourism boom over the last few years fuelled by one bumper season after another, the demand for bush pilots has soared.

Increasingly, many of the candidates applying are women, and as Kerry Staight reports, for some of these high-flying females, the desert frontier has delivered a lot more than they expected.

KERRY STAIGHT, REPORTER: In a town with fewer than 10 people, you'd think it would be fairly quiet in William Creek at first light. But while the legendary local pub isn't an early opener, there's a hive of activity a few hundred metres away, at the airfield. And as pilots prepare their planes for another day's work, one thing's clear: there are more women stepping onto the tarmac.

TREVOR WRIGHT, WRIGHTSAIR OWNER: A few years ago, you'd be lucky to see one or two over a period of a couple of years, but today the resumes are coming towards the equal situation. And, at times, we have probably half to 60 per cent are female pilots.

KERRY STAIGHT: Women in the cockpit may be commonplace out here, but it often surprises visitors.

TALIA SHEPPARD, CHIEF PILOT: Often people ask me if I'm the boss's daughter or something like that or some of the other girls get, "Are you the boss's wife?" Even if there's an initial kind of shock factor there, at the end of the day, everyone wants to have photos with you 'cause they're not used to the exposure of female pilots.

KERRY STAIGHT: Talia Shepherd is one of Trevor Wright's most experienced pilots. But while she appears right at home soaring over this vast landscape, Australia's arid interior took a bit of getting used to.

Born in South Africa and raised on the Gold Coast, this keen surfer started her career with a sea view.

TALIA SHEPPARD: I was flying as a shark patrol pilot on the beach all day, every day, and then come out here and it's just so far away from anything like that. The closest water we have is Lake Eyre and there's definitely no waves in there, so it's just a complete contrast.

KERRY STAIGHT: There's no doubt Lake Eyre is what draws many tourists to this remote, sparsely populated region. But for this pilot, it's the rest of the desert country and the variety of work that keeps her here. As well as the scenic flights, she does charter work for the mines, aerial baiting and helps with the mustering on cattle stations. And what started out as a six-week stint in the Outback has now turned into three years.

TALIA SHEPPARD: I'm not in a massive hurry to get moving anywhere just yet. I'm really enjoying myself out here and enjoying the challenges that come every day. And eventually I'll aim for the airlines down the track, but I want to enjoy all the hands-on flying I can get, you know, while I can still do it, while I'm still young. And the next challenge is my helicopter licence.

KERRY STAIGHT: When you are a young pilot in a community with one road and only a handful of permanent residents, the flying experience comes with new experiences on the ground too. There are some basic domestic skills to master and relationships to build with the locals and each other.

TALIA SHEPPARD: We share a house together and then we work together, we work on the planes together. Then we cook together, clean together. So everything's just - you know, you're in each other's pockets all the time, but good friendships are born out of that as well.

TREVOR WRIGHT: In the majority of cases it's their first experience away from home and they have to learn to become independent and they have to learn life skills. In one way, you're tending to mother them a little built as well. So it's quite interesting to see people mature and continue on with their aviation career.

KERRY STAIGHT: Talia Shepherd's career has certainly progressed. The 27-year-old is the youngest aviator in Australia to be made chief pilot, with around 14 pilots now working under her, some older than her father.

TALIA SHEPPARD: When I went into the CASA office for my chief pilot interview there were a few looks my way going, "Is she old enough to do this job?" But, yeah, it's been a good challenge. I enjoy it.

TREVOR WRIGHT: She's been out here for three years now. She's come up through the ranks with the aircraft. She knows all the locals and the environment we're working in so she served an apprenticeship. She's very good, both in her duties as chief pilot and her ability to problem solve.

KERRY STAIGHT: The boss is also full of praise for female pilots in general.

TREVOR WRIGHT: Where they do excel is in the administration side of things. There's no doubt about that. And also, with their equipment too. They're very pedantic how they look after the equipment. They are definitely much better at multitasking. I think if we had all blokes in this place, there could be some issues coming to the surface very quickly.

KERRY STAIGHT: It's not just William Creek that has its share of female pilots. Women are behind the controls at several of the launching pads to Lake Eyre. From Marree down the bottom to Birdsville up the top.

For Lou Oldfield, flying in the bush has opened more doors than she could've ever imagined. The 30-year-old grew up on a mixed farm at Derrinallum west of Geelong in Victoria. But a broken relationship and a yearning to work in the Outback prompted the pilot to pack up and head inland to Birdsville.

LOU OLDFIELD, CENTRAL EAGLE AVIATION: The open space, I find it very relaxing. And people come here and they think that there'd be less opportunity in a place like this, but I found that there's so much more opportunity. There are big mines out here and nothing really, you know, holds people back.

KERRY STAIGHT: Farming and flying are in this family's blood. Lou's uncle was a pilot. And her grandfather set up a British aviation company in the '40s.

LOU OLDFIELD: They started the package holiday business. They didn't only do routes that had already been set up. They actually pioneered them. They really thought outside the square and nothing was too big for them.

KERRY STAIGHT: But it was a female fighter pilot from the US Navy who prompted Lou to get her own set of wings.

LOU OLDFIELD: She was like the real life Top Gun. She was called Commander Barbara Bell and I went and listened to her talk and she was so inspiring, that was just it for me. I sort of thought, "Yeah, I definitely want to do this."

KERRY STAIGHT: Lou Oldfield started with a charter company in 2009 and was the only pilot doing scenic flights out of Birdsville. After stints in Mackay and Alice Springs, she returned and set up her own business, Central Eagle Aviation, named after her grandfather's airline. And she too would like to pioneer some new flight paths to show tourists more than Lake Eyre and the Channel Country.

LOU OLDFIELD: There's so many amazing things that you could actually do here, even landing here at Pandie. I have to remind myself what I first thought of this place when I came out here and how interested I was to, you know, look at a station.

KERRY STAIGHT: But Lou isn't popping in just to look at this station. Pandie Pandie, 30 kilometres south of Birdsville, is now home after she met and married the manager of the 650,000 hectare cattle property.

CLAYTON OLDFIELD, PANDIE PANDIE STATION MANAGER: Pretty much the second day we met up I dragged her out here and chucked her on a motorbike and we got some stud bulls into the yard.

KERRY STAIGHT: It's a meeting that took a while. In fact, despite living in the same small community for months, they almost missed each other.

LOU OLDFIELD: He was the only person that I hadn't met. He was flat out all year with the mustering here. He arrived the same year and I was so busy with the flying. And three weeks before I was finishing up for the season, he was driving down the main street and I met him.

KERRY STAIGHT: At the time, Clayton Oldfield wasn't exactly a fan of pilots.

CLAYTON OLDFIELD: Had a year of planes flying really low and choppers and I had cattle on fences and, yes, fork in the fences and I was kind of - I put up a notice saying "All aircraft to keep above 1,000 feet". And I think from Lou, she said I was a - thought I was a grumpy old man down here at Pandie Pandie.

KERRY STAIGHT: Fortunately their first impressions of each other have improved and a shared love of the land has blossomed into much more.

You must be feeling pretty lucky in a town with a small population to have met a girl who's not only got farming sense, but could fly as well?

CLAYTON OLDFIELD: Yes, very lucky. I grabbed her and I didn't let her go. I tied her down to the hobbles and, yes, that was it, yes. No, I wasn't letting her go, that's for sure.

LOU OLDFIELD: I think we work really well together and I suppose when you've grown up with stock, you just have that built into you. And, yes, he's so good. You know, he's always in the right place.

KERRY STAIGHT: Well, almost always. A month after they married, the couple got a bit too close for comfort while moving cattle across a river.

LOU OLDFIELD: He came flying past me on the front of his motorbike and clipped - I was almost stationary, he disagrees, but he did, he clipped the front of the ute and I just saw this body come flying across the front of the vehicle. Oh, God; my heart missed a beat. So, yes, the nurse actually thought that something was wrong with me because I was so hysterical. Poor Clay.

KERRY STAIGHT: Despite breaking his hand in the collision, Clay says he still trusts his wife behind the controls, especially when she's in the air.

CLAYTON OLDFIELD: Get in the aircraft and you know you'll feel fine. She's very capable with it and she knows what she's doing, and yeah, it's just a good feeling when you get up there and fly with her.

LOU OLDFIELD: He's still very critical of my landings. But yes, he's left the flying to me. ... That's probably my favourite sort of flying. I love showing passengers the country - tourists, the scenic flights. I do love that. But flying Clay around the station and looking at cattle and, you know, he knows this place so well. I love that.

KERRY STAIGHT: If flying, farming and finding love aren't enough, Lou Oldfield has fitted in a family too, giving birth to twin boys Lachlan and Jack a little over a year ago. While the double act means more time on the ground now, she's still managed to pass her chief pilot's assessment this year.

LOU OLDFIELD: Clay and the boys are the most important things in my life and as much as I love the flying, it now comes second.

KERRY STAIGHT: Some people think there's not much to see in the Outback. But whether she's flying or on foot, Lou Oldfield says her view's never been better.

LOU OLDFIELD: When I came here, I certainly wasn't expecting to fall in love and stay here. It's a dream come true, really, to be able to do this sort of flying and have a family and enjoy the farming. It's everything that I love in life.